The Calm Before
by Lizzie9
Summary: Picks up after Dead Reflection. A Tiva tale of coming together and trying to hide it in the midst of a dangerous undercover operation, and realizing sometimes risking everything is worth it. And we dont even kill off EJ to get them there.
1. Chapter 1

**We are still working on The Best Laid Plans, and an update can be expected by the week's end, but this whole idea hit us like a ton of bricks and we absolutely had to start writing it. It picks up after the Tony/Gibbs showdown in Dead Reflection and takes off running from there, and then we'll jump ahead a few months, and do what we enjoy doing best- creating absurdly unrealistic circumstances and letting shit go down.**

**The first few chapters will focus on the weeks following Dead Reflection, and will use snippets of finale spoilers, and then we 180 and go somewhere else entirely. **

**Part 1 **

_"My team, my rules." _

_"You are going to have some choices to make." _

_"You're afraid of Gibbs. I'm not." _

Tony slumped against the wall of the elevator, already exhausted from this chess game he seemed to be playing with Gibbs. And E.J. He almost considered adding Ziva to the list, but he was too entrenched in other battles to confront the emotional black hole that continued to define his relationship with his partner.

The elevator door opened, and Tony sent a quick prayer that it wasn't Palmer or Abby, because one sympathetic _"What's wrong?"_ would have him spilling his guts. His prayers were answered, but the elevator Gods certainly had a sick sense of humor, because it was Gibbs who stepped inside the suddenly very small steel box.

Somewhere between the parking lot and the evidence garage, Tony surrendered his sanity and stopped the elevator.

With a sigh and a sip from his coffee cup, Gibbs turned around, still silent, but looking very much like he expected his Senior Field Agent to do this.

"Why are you exempt from your own code?" Tony finally asked.

"Didn't know I was." Gibbs said calmly.

"You broke rule number 12." Tony pointed out. He was generally agitated, and the Zen like calm Gibbs was exuding was starting to downright infuriate him. "And we all know, you were alone and in the field, and you have a million other excuses, but the point is that _we all know_ about you and Jenny!"

An unrecognizable expression flashed across Gibbs' face before he settled back into his usual stoic mask. "That was different." He told Tony in a tone laced with finality, as if that statement required no explanation.

"Because it was you. And your rules only apply to everyone else!" Tony snapped loudly.

"You can't keep doing this with E.J." Gibbs said simply, still pissing Tony off with his non-reaction.

Tony laughed humorlessly and rolled his eyes so far back into his head Gibbs hoped they'd get stuck there. "Is this because she's threatening your dominance?" Tony taunted, frustration replacing better judgment.

"It's because she's not worth it!" Gibbs exclaimed, his voice rising to Tony's agitated volume. That was the reaction Tony had been baiting. "Jenny was worth it. E.J. always has an agenda. E.J. is not worth it."

"So I can break your rules if I find a nice redhead you deem to be worth it?" Tony shouted. "I can get a waiver if you pick the girl? Come on Gibbs, E.J. is as worth it as anyone." He cringed at how hollow that sounded, and hoped Gibbs wouldn't notice, but when he met his eyes, there was a hint of a triumphant, I told you so smirk on the boss' face.

Gibbs held Tony's gaze for a long time, looking very much like he wanted to say something, but seemed to think better of it, and instead started the elevator again. He got off at autopsy, muttering something Tony couldn't quite make out, and was pretty sure he didn't want to hear anyway. He wandered into the bullpen to find it strangely empty. Stopping short in front of the window, he gazed out across the river to the Capitol and frowned.

Gibbs, NCIS, his job, his life. It dawned on him he was risking a lot for this thing with E.J. but who the hell was Gibbs, whose middle name was practically 'Alimony payments' to say she wasn't worth it? He stared out the window turning this over in his head, trying to convince himself he could happy with E.J., even though she'd always be second best, but the thought only caused him to laugh at himself.

He'd gotten so pathetic it was actually comical. Like he wasn't wholeheartedly aware there was only one person worth risking everything to be with, and he'd stared across the office at her almost every day for five years.

It would always come back to Ziva, and the torturous paradox of wanting her desperately, and needing her more. The bleakness of the summer she was gone still haunted him, and the mere thought of not having her in his life caused his chest to tighten with panic and his heart to pound. He wanted more with her, he wanted everything with her, but he was too afraid he'd manage to fuck it up and lose her entirely to take the chance.

Tony's sweaty palms hit the rail in front of him as he struggled with the weight of consciously processing in his head what he'd been ignoring for as long as he could remember. The illusion that made it bearable was officially shattered, and as much as might have wanted to bang his head against a wall or cry, he laughed out loud again. Sleeping with one agent, in love with another who happened to be his partner, and completely frozen when it came to doing something about it.

"Yes, Anthony, you are _fucked_." he muttered to himself.

"Hell of a way to start the morning." E.J. said as she sidled up to him and positioned herself close enough that they were touching. Her proximity immediately annoyed him; that place of just touching was usually reserved for Ziva.

"It's been a strange day." he told her without betraying emotion.

E.J. eyed him strangely. "It's not even eight AM." she pointed out.

Tony's eyes returned to the view from the window, and when he snapped back into the moment, Gibbs, and McGee had materialized at their desks.

"MTAC." Gibbs grunted. He was halfway up the stairs when he turned around and looked at Tony. "Bring Ziva when she gets here."

"Shouldn't there be some kind of rule against being late?" E.J. quipped to Tony.

Tony sighed inwardly and waited, until sure enough, Gibbs snapped back at her. "I don't think you need to be at all concerned with my rules, Agent Barrett."

This time, E.J. waited until he had disappeared into MTAC before giving Tony a shrug and a smirk. "At least he can still hear."

Tony shot her a look, and she rolled her eyes in response. "Oh come on, Tony," she chided, "I told you I wasn't afraid of him."

"E.J..." he started, wondering where he was going with this, and seriously doubting that in the haze of this emotional cluster fuck was a frame of mind in which he should make any decisions, when Ziva's voice stopped him.

"Where is everyone?"

"Waiting for us in MTAC."

Ziva paused for a moment, sensing she had walked into something between them, but chose to ignore it. "Did our invitation get lost in the mail?"

"Arrived by courier this morning," Tony told her without missing a beat, "I was waiting to roll out the red carpet for you."

E.J. blinked at the change in his demeanor. "Ziva, he'll be a minute." she said, her eyes fixed on Tony.

Overcoming all of her natural instincts that were telling her to hit Barrett in the face, Ziva nodded and started up the stairs.

"DiNozzo, what's going on?" she heard Barrett hiss. Ziva's pace slowed; this was something she was dying to know as well.

Tony didn't answer, at least not that she could hear, and she couldn't stop herself from turning around at the top of the stairs. His eyes were trained on her, and there was a very strange expression on his face, one that looked vaguely familiar, but she hadn't seen in a long time.

"Sorry," he muttered to E.J. before jogging after Ziva.

**PLEASE REVIEW?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the reviews and alerts and the response to the first chapter! We were so thrilled! Love to you all! Here we have some Tony/ Ziva fights, and a jumping point for things to come. We're ignoring the P2P storyline for the most part, as in the next few chapters we'll be fast forwarding past all this unpleasantness that's in the NCIS universe. **

**Also, if they kill off Ziva in the finale, we're boycotting CBS for the rest of our days. **

**REVIEW?**

**Part 1: Two Weeks Later**

"_It's getting so damn creepy just nursing this ghost of a chance, the fiction, the romance…" –Matchbox Twenty_

"Day seventeen." Ziva muttered under her breath. For the last seventeen days, she had come to work, rode the elevator to the bullpen, gotten off and sat at her desk without a word from her partner.

About ten minutes after he gave her that look on the stairs, that look she had been struggling to define ever since, he shut down. He stopped speaking to her, he stopped texting her. They were in a partnership with the least amount of communication possible, and not only were she wholly clueless about what she'd done to get him this angry, she was also completely sick of it.

But since she didn't know what the hell was going on between him and E.J. who was still behind her, blonde and irritating as ever, she decided to try a civilized approach, despite her overwhelming gut feeling it would end with them trying to kill each other in a men's room somewhere.

Never the less she set a cup of coffee on his desk and smiled brightly at him when he arrived a few minutes later. "Good morning Tony." She said in the tone that she saved especially for him. It was her light, leering, come and get me tone, and it usually snapped him out of….anything.

"Agent David." He replied with a curt nod.

"I brought you coffee." She offered, determined to keep her voice calm and pleasant.

"Thanks." Was his short reply.

McGee watched with trepidation as Ziva folded her arms over her chest and her eyes narrowed in Tony's direction. "Oh no." he said quietly.

"Is something wrong, Tony?" Ziva inquired, her tone now dripping with sarcastic concern.

"I am positively peachy, Agent David."

Ziva snorted in response, causing E.J. to look over, and McGee to briefly close his eyes.

"And you?" Tony shot at Ziva, his eyes flashing, "Were you implying something with that noise, or do you have a cold?"

"Well there is certainly a chill in the air."

"I'm sure that's shocking to someone with your warm and affectionate upbringing and cuddly disposition." Tony spit out.

McGee, who had been staring intently at his computer screen, his usual tactic to Stay Out of Whatever It Was This Time: Tony and Ziva Edition, felt his head snapping toward their voices, and he noticed even E.J. recoil at Tony's tone.

Ziva shot out of her chair as soon as the words left Tony's mouth, and for a split second, her partner was sure he'd finally done it and she was actually going to kill him this time, but the murder in her eyes slipped almost instantly, replaced by a rawness she rarely showed anyone.

"Ziva…"

"Oh, no more Agent David?" she asked, cutting him off. She moved to stand in front of his desk. "If you want to do this, why back down? Since I apparently have no feelings, you certainly should not worry about offending me!"

He almost stopped it then. After all, he wasn't even angry with her. He'd resorted to being a total asshole while he tried to figure out…everything between them, but until now, she'd just let him. He almost stopped it then, when she did the thing she knew would hurt him the most.

"Typical." She muttered. And then she turned and started walking away. That's when the emotional powder keg in Tony snapped. He took two huge strides after her, and grabbed her arm, turning her around and pulling her toward him.

"No." he practically shouted at her. "You're not walking away." Like she did from her father, and Ari, and Ray, and everyone else. He could not be one of the people she gave up on.

"What is the matter with you, Tony?" Ziva demanded. She took a step closer to him. "You haven't spoken to me in weeks, you're acting like a crazy person and you say you're fruity?"

"It's peachy!" Tony thundered.

"Why does that matter?" Ziva hollered back. "Why does anything matter but-" She stopped herself before she shouted something she'd regret all of NCIS hearing.

Tony swore he could have smacked her, but he was simultaneously suddenly aware of how close they were, and the heat that was coming from her body. She looked up at him through her lashes, with dark eyes and he felt weak in the knees. She boldly held his gaze, unsure of whether she'd rather beat him or jump him.

McGee was starting to get seriously concerned that the tension and the hate eye sex they were currently having was going to have them ripping each other's clothes off and working out their issues on Tony's desk when the elevator door dinged, and they separated instantly.

"We've got a…" Gibbs trailed off when he noticed Tony and Ziva glaring at each other, McGee and E.J. gaping and tension he could cut with a knife.

"What the hell?" he asked.

"Minor disagreement." Tony said through gritted teeth.

Gibbs turned to Ziva, who had already put on her Mossad mask that betrayed nothing in her face. "We're fine." She said.

Gibbs rolled his eyes. They both looked hurt, pissed, and like they'd be screwing each other's brains out if the rest of them weren't there, which was way too much for Gibbs to handle any time, let alone on his first cup of coffee.

"What do we got, boss?" McGee asked, interrupting, and earning a grateful look from both of his co-workers.

"We got…" Gibbs started. "Yea, that's a good question. Grab your gear." He jerked his head at E.J. "You too, Barrett."

"You don't even know what you have."

"What we have is evidence of a murder in an old Navy warehouse. Could be connected to your Port killer."

* * *

><p>Irony was following him. For all of his efforts to ignore her recently, Tony didn't think he'd ever been more aware of Ziva's presence. They sat stone still on their way to the crime scene; they were stunted and moving strangely around each other at the warehouse. He was hyper aware of her every move, she was furiously avoiding eye contact.<p>

Their roles were reversed from this morning. Act one was Aggressive and Belligerent Ziva Tries to Elicit a Reaction from Stony and Silent Tony. Tony sighed; Act two was no better.

Ziva volunteered to check the perimeter of the building for evidence, and McGee followed her.

"What are you guys doing?" he asked.

Ziva looked up, surprised at his bluntness. "I wish I knew." She answered sadly.

McGee shot her an exasperated smile. "You two are ridiculous! Every time you step forward you force each other to sprint back in the opposite direction."

"McGee, I do not…" she started, but McGee cut her off.

"You _do_ know, Ziva. Just… figure it out." McGee was surprised when she met his gaze looking earnest and open, but not angry.

"I am not sure if we can."

"You can't not," McGee said firmly, "You guys are in it now, and you're only as strong as you are together, so why not go all in?"

Ziva had to smile. "This from Special Agent McGee who once wore his uniform to a crime scene ten feet from his desk?"

McGee shrugged. "I'm evolving."

She was about to ask him if he meant what she thought he meant when Gibbs called for her from inside the warehouse, so she patted him on the shoulder and hurried inside.

"DiNozzo is in the back with the camera. Bag and tag anything he shoots." Gibbs said, still obviously unhappy with them. Ziva privately questioned his punishment methods, but she hurried in the direction her boss' thumb had jerked anyway.

"Tony?" she called, winding through the warehouse. She was all the way in one of the back corners when she noticed a partially open door. "Tony!" she said again, louder this time, hoping it wasn't E.J. Or worse, hoping he wasn't back there _with_ E.J.

"Ziva, don't come in here." She frowned.

"I have to. Gibbs' orders." She took a deep breath. "Plus I think we should…" she trailed off. "Will you at least tell me what I did?"

There was a pause and he didn't answer. "Please?" she asked, swallowing her pride.

"Ziva, _go_." His tone put all of her senses on alert and she drew closer to the door, realizing now that something was wrong.

"Tony…" she said again. Her voice was alert now, and he knew instantly that her inner ninja was about to come out. From his spot in the middle of the room across from the shadowy figure pointing the gun at him, he tried one more time and sent a silent prayer that for once, she would listen.

"Ziva, be my partner right now. Trust me, and _please_ get out of here."

It was the partner line that almost got her. That word meant so much to them that it was practically sacred, but she burst through door anyway, hand reaching for the gun at her side.

When she saw the arms holding the gun swing to her temple, the dirty fingers holding it go for the safety, and heard the shot of the gun, she was _positive_ this was it. In that split second that everything happened, she was bracing herself for a bullet to the brain.

* * *

><p>There was no chance to talk until hours later. There was all the time they spent fending off suggestions to get checked out at the hospital, identifying the would be shooter, who turned out to be a drug dealer using the warehouse as his meth lab, statements to give, and concerned looks to dodge. And then she disappeared.<p>

Night had fallen by the time they returned to NCIS, and after assuring Abby a million times she was okay, Ziva had seemingly vanished, and nearly another hour passed until Tony found her in autopsy, drinking. In a strange, déjà vu inducing role reversal from years ago right after Jenny died, it was Ziva who poured him a drink this time.

He accepted it and downed it before turning his glare towards her. She stood quickly, trying to get the first word in but Tony was faster for once.

"I'd kill you myself if I hadn't just shot someone to prevent it from happening." He said in a low, dangerous tone.

Ziva's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"You had to come in there, didn't you?" Tony shouted. "You… Damn it, Ziva, it's like you're looking for a gun to your head! You're not invincible!"

"Neither are you!" she cried, running an angry hand through her curls. "And I _knew_ something was wrong, and it was the gun pointed at you!"

"I practically begged you to trust me, and you couldn't!"

Tony could have sworn lightning flashed in her eyes as the words left his mouth. "For God's sake, Tony, you _used_ our partnership to _manipulate_ me!" she shouted at the top of her voice. "If I had walked away, trusting you, as your partner, and you had died…" She trailed off.

Tony threw his hands in the air, still angry and indignant, despite how right she was about what he'd done, and scoffed. "So we're back here. With the half sentences and the crushing silence of what isn't said."

"You are the one who has not been speaking to me!" Ziva cried, slamming her hand into the autopsy table next to her. "We are _always_ here, Tony."

"You didn't even properly draw your weapon!" Tony thundered. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking! I heard your voice, and I knew something was wrong, and if I had walked away because you asked me to be your partner, in some delusion that it has to be you instead of me, I never would have forgiven myself!" she shot back at him, eyes blazing.

"And I would never forgive myself if it _wasn't_ me instead of you!" He laughed bitterly and stepped forward to grip her shoulders. "Don't you get it, Ziva? I am _always_ the one losing you, and I can't do it again. Why do you think I went to Somalia? I sure as hell didn't know you were alive. Maybe Gibbs and Vance did, but I was going to kill the guy who killed you or die trying!"

She recoiled like he'd slapped her, but he didn't let go of her shoulders. Ziva shook her head adamantly. "No. No, Tony, that does not make sense."

"I told you I couldn't live without you then! What part of that didn't you understand?" Ziva didn't say anything. She was furious, shocked and more than a little bewildered. Tony seemed to take advantage of her silence to make as much noise as possible.

"He had a gun to your head, Zi. He was pulling the damn safety, about to blow your brains out, and I…" He trailed off, struggling with himself.

It was Ziva's turn to give a short, humorless laugh. "And nothing changes." She muttered, wrenching from his grasp and starting to walk away from him for the second time that day.

_Yes it does. It has to change_, Tony thought to himself. For the second time that day, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, but this time he pulled her right into him and brought his lips crashing onto hers.


End file.
